14 Fumetto Festival artists on visual narration

The Fumetto Comix Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, took place from April 1-9, 2017. So the timing is perfect to go over last year’s interviews of 14 artists on visual narration – a research project of the Lucerne School of Art and Design. Do this test and find out which comic artist’s views you share:

Official image of the comics festival of Fumetto 2017

A) You think that saying that drawing is a language…

1-…makes perfectly sense, as it obviously is a language (Yves Noyau). Indeed, it might be one of the only ways you found to express yourself (Caroline Sury).

2-…it is actually more than a language as it comes from raw emotion and spontaneous feeling (Thierry Van Hasselt) and because it pushes the boundaries of traditional language further (Yvan Alagbe)…In fact it’s precisely this rawness of emotion that might lead to affirm it’s the opposite of language, which comes from a more rational part of the brain (Gabrielle Bell).

3-…You’re an agnostic when it comes to drawing as a language. Recent readings made you question whether it is a language or not (Matt Madden).

4-…You’re a relativist: sometimes it’s less than a language sometimes it’s more than it (Ben Katchor).

B) Your method as a teacher consists of…

2-…encouraging your students to have an analytical approach of what they are doing (Ulli Lust) and asking themselves questions such as “why should the listener have any interest in what I’m saying?” (Ben Katchor).

4-…putting the emphasis on building trust so students are self-confident but also have the craft and the will to keep on learning independently (Pierre Thomé).

5-… giving a holistic sense of what comics could mean. In cartooning you think it’s good to embrace culture as a whole, so you reference to music, literature and other forms of art in class and you’re looking for bridges (Matt Madden).

6-…seeing yourself as mainly a facilitor for the student to express what they have in themselves (Yvan Alagbe and Edmond Baudoin).

C) Which following quotes could you be yours?

2- “My technique is just, you gotta dive in and do it.” (Gabrielle Bell)

3- “I once had a teacher saying, there are no problems that can’t be solved with honest, hard work.” (Pierre Thomé)

4- “Make [your students] go beyond the idea that comics are about nice pictures or nice words: they are about how pictures, words and a page work together. And also not to make them think comics are not beautiful, they are just beautiful in a different way.” (Tom Gauld)

5- “ I always thought that great comic artists where before and all great storytellers that could have been other things too, like a novelist or a filmmaker but, they chose the comic medium to put in shape what they wanted to say.” (Jacques De Loustal)

6- “ To jump up the edge of the brink : dive in your weaknesses. That’s it: go where it might seem forbidden to go.” (Edmond Baudoin)

As you figure out the results of this test and explore the different interviews, we’ll leave you with one of our personal favorites: